This is a noncommercial presentation of the remarkable collection of
German coins known as the Saurmasche Münzsammlung.
The coins shown here are NOT FOR SALE. Please do not contact
this website about buying, selling, or appraising coins!

The Collection

Formed by a 19th century German aristocrat, Hugo, Freiherr von
Saurma-Jeltsch, this collection concentrates on the smaller-size,
everyday coinage used in Germany and in nearby regions from around
1280 to 1620 AD.

This is a very complex subject! To get an idea of the scope
of the material, take a quick look at the list of coin-issuing
states and mints and at the
maps showing their locations. Also, take
a look at the list of rulers who issued the coins.
These included emperors, kings, dukes, counts, bishops, archbishops,
lords, and abbots from all parts of Germany and nearby areas.

Notably absent from the collection are the large
silver thalers and multiple thalers. They have always
been great favorites among collectors, so they have been preserved and
studied extensively. Excellent catalogs of them are readily
available (e.g., Davenport). The Saurmasche Münzsammlung
completes the picture by dwelling on the smaller-size coins,
which were the backbone of everyday commerce.

The Website

Every page on this website starts with a row of buttons that go
directly to the site's main entry points. We've already
mentioned the set of maps and the indexes of
places, people, and
denominations. The
type index is also very
important and contains, among other items, a list of the many
patron saints that appear on the coinage.
An index of coin sizes is also hidden away
in the section on denominations, and an index of coats of arms is
currently under construction.

If a coin has a known Saurmasche catalog number, it can be
found by clicking on the #s (numbers)
symbol at the top of the page. This leads to a set of
menus that allow any number to be selected. Note that
the catalog uses two parallel sets of numbers: coin numbers
(1 to 5933) and illustration numbers (1 to 3171).

Most of the words and images on the website are "clickable",
providing a very powerful way to browse through the site. If
a coin is not exactly the one being looked for, just click on
its state, ruler, denomination or any pictorial feature, and
a group of similar coins will be displayed. When an interesting
coin is found, click on its picture to get the maximum information
available about the coin.

It is also possible to scan through any section of the catalog
in the order it was originally printed, starting, for example,
at the first state page or at the
first ruler page and moving forwards
or backwards by clicking on pointers at the bottom of each page.
The "ruler pages" are smaller and more numerous than the "state
pages", since they contain the coins of just one duke or bishop,
(for example) rather than all of the coins struck in the duchy
or bishopric. Each ruler page includes a scan of the pertinant
text from the Saurmasche catalog. The text often
mentions coins with different dates, which are not shown in the
illustrations.

The Saurmasche catalog was published in 1892 and now, a
century later, it is still a favorite among collectors of early
German coins. Its photos are not always very clear; its text
is terse; and some of its attributions have become obsolete,
based on intervening research. Still its exceptionally broad
coverage of this complex and difficult series of coinage gives
it a unique position in the numismatic literature.